Rantings about advertising, media and marketing with some personal stuff thrown in.

August 22, 2008

Over-reaching laws for personal vendettas

Last week, Jan Marcason and 8 other members of the city council sponsored a bill at the council level that would require any city volunteer to undergo hours of volunteer training and background checks for all city volunteers.

The ordinance is actually geared toward one person, mayor Funkhouser's wife Gloria Squitiro. I don't know Gloria. Never met her. I don't know enough information about the lawsuite over her alleged "insensitivity" is legit (although I've heard from several sources that it's not). Regardless, it's become very clear that the majority of the council doesn't like her...it may or may not be founded. Personally, I don't really care.

My bigger problem with this whole mess is the council's clearly not-well-thought-out initiative to require all city volunteers to undergo extensive background checks and training sessions -- and that they cannot volunteer for a city group where they have a relative that works.

The council has already backed off some. They clearly realized that the parks department relies heavily on volunteers to help keep our parks clean and maintained. However, it's also very clear that they haven't considered other areas that rely on volunteers (or may at some point in the future).

Due to budget cuts, the city has actually considered shutting down our animal shelter. Many animal shelters across the country have been very successful in getting volunteers to help keep the shelter going who will work at no cost to the city. For many reasons the KCMO shelter doesn't use volunteers now (primarily because volunteers don't like working for the KCMO shelter that kills an average of 20 pets a day), but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be beneficial in the future to build a strong volunteer base. This will be infinitely harder with this ordinance.

There are many other departments that would be affected.

It would now become virtually impossible for the city to organize volunteer groups to clean up city streets and sidewalks.

Places like the leaf and brush pick-ups would not be able to solicite additional volunteer support following major storms when the drop sites are much busier.

The KCATA may or may not rely on volunteers to hand out information to neighborhoods affected by changes in bus routes that might occur in light of building a multi-million dollar light rail system.

Any community centers that are not covered under the parks and rec department would not be able to have volunteer help.

It will become more difficult to get volunteers for any future city-run recycling programs, or to help people who want to take advantage of the city's paint program, that provides paint to people free of charge from a collection of partially used paint cans dropped off at city sites.

The list could get longer.

The reality is that the city SHOULD WANT to rely heavily on volunteer workers. It is a completely great way to bring down city costs, and to promote involvement from its citizens.

And the city council is willing to throw away these potential opportunities because they have a beef with one person who is the wife of the mayor and works in the mayor's office (for free).

More and more the city council reminds me a lot more of a group of 7th graders on their student council than a group that should be running the 2nd largest city in the state of Missouri.

Let's get over the petty disagreements and work out these issues like adults. Let's not pass broad-sweeping laws that will prohibit volunteerism in the city and increase the need for taxes to pay for all of the work that needs to be done, and start acting like a real city run by adults.

Like I said, I could honestly care less about whether the bitterness toward Squitiro is warranted or not. I just know a broad, over-reaching law that encompasses thousands of potential volunteers because of a vendetta against one person is quite the over-reaction. Seems like the council, and the mayor (and his staff) could come to an adult agreement on the matter vs making a law that would affect thousands of potential volunteers and potentially millions in lost resources to the city. It all seems very childish.

I'm not an insider, nor do I have insiders/lawmakers feeding me my information. But even if the lawsuit is really the worst case scenerio, the over-reaction by the council (which is becoming typical of this council) is still overly-dramatic.

Nice Tony. Apparently your freinemy Gottstein got you to sell out in exchange for her feeding you dirt - I guess it was worth it from your comment. But it makes you the last person to cast stones on "who got to you"...

Where's the outrage over a city council person feeding some random blogger inside information? Why don't we pass a law about that?

Tony, even if the Gloria Squituro thing is the worst case scenerio, and she is making blatant racial slurs in city hall (I have no reason to believe it either is or isn't true), the city council creating restrictions on all volunteerism in the city hardly seems like the appropriate response. The problem appears to be (at worst) quite limited to one person, why sanction any and all volunteers because of it? Even if it is a major problem.

There are already laws in place to deal with the racial slurs Tony. No stupid little "diversity training" class is going to keep anything from happening in the future - please explain how it is going to stop anything? Do you think Gloria wasn't aware she's not supposed to call people derogatory names? This is grandstanding on the council's part...this is no solution and just a waste of time. Talk about "better things to do..."

Don't flatter yourself - I was referring to the leaked info. Don't need much more proof than somehow you got a hold of her phone message....hmmmm.